Missed Opportunity
by KatLeePT
Summary: Grams did have quite a number of suitors. Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and Jareth.


The strangeness of the striking appearance the man made at the California funeral that Autumn afternoon did not truly occur to them then. They had met all kinds of people that evening, each of whom wanted to wish them their condolences and their best wishes for their future without their grandmother and all of whom, too, wanted to tell them what a special person Penelope had been. They all knew how special their grandmother, each already feeling her loss in a different way.

Many had brought them food, despite Piper's reknowned culinary skills, and many, too, had offered their help in other areas. So when the man approached them, at first, they thought little of it. He had been one of the ones who had sent flowers and had lain a single, white rose upon their grandmother's corpse. But then, a surprising number of guys had brought flowers. Their grandmother, evidently, had had quite a following of male admirers.

Still, none of them had brought a rose the color of snow and seeming as perfect a flower as the bringer was a speciman of man. His perfectly combed hair reached his shoulders, and he was dressed in black leather from head to foot. At any other time, the sisters would have bickered amongst themselves as to who had seen him first and, therefore, had dibs on him, but this was no ordinary time.

Nor was he any ordinary man. He glided to them through the dispersing crowd, as graceful as he was handsome. "You three have my sincerest condolences," he spoke quietly, but there was something about his hushed speech that drew all of three of them. They thought he must surely be a politician of some sort because his tongue, upon which Piper was quite certain butter would not melt, made them, for the first time in several days, pay complete attention to somebody outside their immediate family.

"Penelope was a rare and wonderful woman. She was sweet, a gem among mortals."

Phoebe looked curiously at him, her head cocking to an angle as she studying him in the setting sunlight. There was something strange about that sentence, but she couldn't think of what it was.

"She was," Piper agreed with the same thin smile she had used all day in speaking to the friends and family who all meant them well.

"I know this is a hard time for you three sisters, but if there is anything I can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to call upon me." He extended three more white roses to them. None of the girls stopped to think that they hadn't seen him carrying them previously as they accepted the gifts.

"Yes," the children gathered around his feet spoke in agreement. "Yes. Should you need us . . . "

It was strange, Prue thought, that only the man did not hide his face in the sun. The rest of his group were completely covered. She passed their strange attire off as either an unusual religious preference (after all, San Francsico was full of all kinds of religious nuts) or a hereditary skin condition that required them to hide from the sun. The man smiled at her, and she thought no more of it.

"Yes. Should you need us," the old, knobbly-kneed woman just pass the man's right elbow piped up. Prue thought that surely she must have been the man's connection to their grandmother. After all, he was far too young and handsome to have been one of Grams' many suitors. For the first time, she thought that maybe her grandmother had never remarried because she had too much fun being single.

"We'll call," Piper broke in, clearly, to her sisters at least, hoping to silence the man and send him on his way.

"Do you have my number?" His bicolored eyes twinkled. Prue wondered if one was a contact while Phoebe found herself thinking,_Any other time . . . _

"What's a number, Your Ma-?"

None of the three noticed the man's left leg kick back into the impudent "child" who had spoken.

"I'm sure she's got it at home in her book."

"Indeed. The special one." Piper glowered while Prue and Phoebe gazed intently up at the man. "The antique one bound in leather."

Piper's smile thinned even more. "I know just the one. Don't worry: If we need you, we'll call." She grabbed her sisters' hands and almost dragged them as she made her escape, muttering darkly, "We won't need any of these people." They couldn't help them, any way. No one could heal the hole left in their hearts and souls by their grandmother's passing. She had tried to prepare herself for this day for years, but no one could really ever be ready for the loss of a loved one. She was beginning to cry by the time they reached Prue's car.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Rain began to fall. Phoebe and Prue both looked back to where the man had stood, but he was long gone.

It wasn't until two weeks after they had come into their powers that Phoebe finally made the connection at the video rental store. Her sisters' heads jerked up as she squealed.

"What," Prue snapped irritabily. "Is. Your. Problem?!"

"_Labyrinth_?" Piper asked. "Phebs, we've only seen that movie, like, eighteen times!"

"It never gets old," Phoebe retorted, "but that's not why I've got it. Look at it! Look at the man on the cover!"

"Yes, yes, David Bowie is hot," Prue said, rolling her eyes. "Any woman with a pulse knows that."

"_Look_ at him, Prue," insisted Phoebe, but it was only when Piper breathed, "Oh. My. God!", that Prue did indeed cast her eyes upon Jareth.

"That looks . . . " she started uncertainly.

"Like the man at the funeral," Phoebe finished for her.

"But it couldn't be. Could it?"

"Witches aren't supposed to exist, either."

"Yeah, but come on. How would Grams know Jareth?"

"The Book. Remember he said his number was in the old, antique book?"

"You don't think he meant the _Book of Shadows_, do you?"

"There's only one way to know."

"Phoebe, haven't you seen everything in that Book by now?"

"Are you kidding me? There's, like, a gazillion pages!"

The sisters looked at each other, and then promptly burnt rubber getting home. They were flipping the pages hurriedly when the strange breeze that sometimes blew through the attic took control of the passing pages. When the antique pages stopped fluttering, the trio again found themselves staring into the eyes of a certain Goblin King, along with a spell to conjure him.

"Oh. My. God!"

"It is him!"

"Now all we need is a baby."

"Phoebe!"

"Just kidding."

"You don't think Grams . . . "

"Mostly."

"Grams would have never given us to the Goblin King."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Y-Yes, of course," Piper said, but her voice was stuttering as she shut their family's Book of spells.

"What about Mom?"

"Mom wouldn't have, either!"

"But what if Grams called him to get Mom?"

"She wouldn't!"

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Windchimes twinkled in the attic, and for a moment, the trio thought they heard laughter. They looked at each other, but Piper shook her head. "She wouldn't."

"She also told us Witches didn't exist."

"That was different," Piper insisted, hurrying out of the attic. "She loved us."

Prue shrugged, looking at Phoebe. "She has a point, and besides, we're not Goblins."

"We'll never know," Phoebe replied, slowly shutting the Book. Her fingers lingered on the cover. "Not without a baby any way," she whispered, thinking Prue had gone far enough not to hear her.

"_Phoebe!_"

"Kidding!" _Mostly._ Thunder roared. The wind beat at the old house, but when Phoebe turned toward a window, she didn't see an owl. She sighed and muttered, "Talk about your missed opportunities. Grams, just what _did_ you do with the Goblin King?" That time, she was certain she heard laughter and quickened her pace to catch her sisters.

The End


End file.
